A blog about dancing through cancer treatment

Dresses!

As mentioned, I am going to share a bit about my upcoming dresses, even though they won’t be made until after I recover from my surgery. Half the fun of getting new dresses is designing them and picking out the fabrics for them. I have 3 new dresses in process–one each for standard, latin and smooth.

Each one has a name. Standard is ‘Winevine’, Latin is ‘Sunno’, and Smooth is ‘Silverbirch’. The names have to do with the themes of the design of the dress. I am not going to say too much about the design of them, but I am going to give some details.

First is Winevine. This dress is going to be mainly Wine and Emerald velvet with some chiffon and organza in the skirt. It’s a pretty unique design and this one has been on the books the longest. We were going to start this one before I got diagnosed originally but then as things evolved it became obvious that we would need to wait for my second surgery. So the materials for this have been waiting almost a year to be put together into this fabulous dress!! The dress was designed by a friend of Boss’s in Russia (who also designed my current dresses).

I love her designs, but she and I don’t agree on colours at all. She originally wanted this dress to be Hawaiian Pink with Green. Being a redhead with a lot of pink undertones to my skin and a tendency to get red in the face just thinking about exertion anything pink is a no no. This is the second time we have clashed over colours and it always causes an argument with Boss and I, so we decided after Winevine not to use her as a designer anymore. It seems to work ok.

Probably it seems strange, but Boss is very involved in the dressmaking/design/selection process. His theory is that if he has to dance with us, and we are representing his studio then he needs to make sure we look good. It’s interesting to say the least but his input is pretty useful and almost invaluable in the end.

Sunno is going to be my latin dress and it’s theme is ‘Ocean Sunset’. So the main colour is royal blue, but the contrast is red and yellow tie-dye almost. This dress, Boss, my dressmaker, and I sat down and worked out the design together. I am pretty excited for it because it is very different from any dress I have seen, and certainly any dress I have worn. The royal blue is an amazing colour, but the contrast material is really bold! I am very curious to see how it all comes together.

Silverbirch is my baby. The name is the theme–it is a silver dress with green accents that you almost don’t realize are there–like the leaves on silverbirch trees. This design is mine and probably the most artistically thing I have done. It just popped into my head one night and I tried to sketch it with 0 artistic ability, but my description of it was enough for my dressmaker to be able to sketch it right. She says this dress is the one she is most interested in seeing come to reality, and I think I am too! We are playing around with the colours and silver is colour that is very ‘out there’ for me to choose to wear. Usually I stick to my comfort zones of colours that compliment fair redheads. I wanted to do something different though, so silver it is.

So of three dresses, all of them put me outside my comfort zone at bit colour-wise–the Wine in Winevine is a main colour and not usual for me, the yellow, orange in Sunno is pretty out there and colourful and silver in Silverbirch is completely in a different zone. I think Boss likes I am trying to expand a bit, and even he seems pretty impressed with the designs we have going on. I hope they look as good in reality (or better!) than they look on paper 🙂

Now I just have to get through radiation and recover from my surgery–minor details 🙂